PROSECUTOR AMBUSHED IN MEXICO

Anti-Drug Crusader Escapes, Aide Injured

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor and his wife escaped
uninjured Sunday when gunmen on motorcycles fired at his vehicle.

Mariano Herran Salvatti's bodyguards exchanged fire with the gunmen.
One bodyguard was wounded in the leg, and one of the attackers was
hospitalized with a gunshot wound, news reports said.

The attack occurred on a main street in Coyoacan, a southern part of
Mexico City. It was not clear whether the attackers -- on two
motorcycles, each with a gunman and driver -- were trying to
assassinate Herran or kidnap him.

Herran said he and his wife had left a restaurant and were traveling
to a market in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. They had two police
bodyguards in the vehicle and a third accompanying them on a motorcycle.

The bodyguard on the motorcycle spotted a passenger on one of the
motorcycles pulling a gun and a shootout ensued, Herran said.

One of the attackers later hijacked a minibus, the government news
agency Notimex reported. He remained at large. It was unclear what
happened to the others involved in the attack.

Herran was appointed Mexico's drug czar in March 1997 after his
predecessor, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was arrested on charges of
taking payoffs from a major drug trafficker. Herran was previously
Mexico City's chief prosecutor.

Mexico is a major producer of marijuana, opium poppy and
methamphetamine, as well as a route for cocaine moving north from
South America to the United States.

In February, as Mexico defended its war on drugs in its annual bid for
U.S. certification, Herran Salvatti said the country had made great
strides in fighting drug traffickers.

Every March the U.S. president must certify to Congress that countries
which are major drug producers or transshipment areas are "fully
cooperating" in the drug war. If not, the nations lose their foreign
aid and the United States opposes their obtaining loans from the World
Bank and other multilateral lenders.